Facing my anger and choosing a different path is the only way to freedom… What a shame!

I am in what is becoming my favourite place. My sister and brother in law have a fantastic beach house in the town of Orford on the Tasmanian South East Coast. Because of their generosity we are able to use it a few times a year and it really is just a great place to relax.

We usually try to find a TV series to watch in the evenings, and the mornings are a chance to read, sleep in or play computer games (depending on which of these things you are in to). This time the kids have lined up all the Harry Potter movies to wade through.

As I read the first chapter of James in my quiet time this morning, I realised just how important it was for me to get away.

It has been a very challenging couple of years for me personally and for Fusion, and I have learned a great deal about myself through the time. I have also learned a great deal from the bible as the more difficult life got, the more relevant the bible seemed to be.

I have to confess though that I think I had been getting to the end of my rope.

The actions of a number of people have been causing me and my family significant pain and I was coming close to wanting to retaliate… to somehow ease the pain by inflicting pain on them.

I have written before about the myth of redemptive violence, which is perpetuated in almost every movie and television show ever produced, despite the fact that there is measurable data to demonstrate it doesn’t work. The myth of redemptive violence is the supposition that you redeem injustice with violence, that somehow if you can generate more force than someone who you perceive to be unjust, that you will make the situation better. It’s not true.

I had a long chat to my youngest son Daniel about this today, he is a bit smaller than my older son and as a result he often finds himself being pushed around. His dream is to get big enough to do the pushing. Basically he is wanting to act out the myth of redemptive violence.

There is part of me that wishes it was true. There is something quite appealing about the idea of causing pain to someone who causes you pain, and the more pain the more appealing the thought is.

The reason I needed this holiday was that i needed the distance to realise the unhealthy patterns of thought I was starting to have.

I felt very challenged by James this morning. I really didn’t want to hear it..

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. James 1:2 (MSG)

I realised as I journaled this morning that in wanting to take matters into my own hands there were two mistakes I was making. The first was that I was looking for a way to get away from the challenges that feel like they are coming at me from all sides prematurely. My personal pain was setting the agenda. Secondly, and as a result of that, I was not trusting that God could sort things out. My faith-life was being forced into the open and was being found wanting.

I am very grateful for this chance to pull back and get some perspective.

I’m not sure what challenges James was talking about, but much of the first chapter spoke to me this morning.

I realised that as I was looking to take control, I was praying less and being less open to what God was trying to say to me:

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
James 1:5 (MSG)

I felt challenged to pray more deeply and as I did, I knew God was asking me not to react but to trust.

I am also discovering that the very act of hanging on and trusting really does produce a deeper and richer life as James promises:

Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
James 1:12 (MSG)

I wish there was some other way, particularly when I am carrying as much anger as I have been recently. A big part of me wants to fix the thing that is causing the anger, but once the anger becomes the agenda, I can see that I have lost the game. I need to work past my anger to see what is really going on. James is quite direct about this:

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, [20] for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. James 1:19-20 (NIV)

It’s all very well to know this intellectually but its a different thing to try to listen when everything in you wants to lash out.

Over the past couple of years I have seen there is a real connection between facing the mess and chaos of my inner world and discovering real faith. James puts it this way:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. [23] Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror [24] and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. [25] But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
James 1:22-25 (NIV)

I’m so grateful I was able to have this space to be able to pull back and get some perspective.

I really do want to live my faith in the real world and not just talk about it. Seeing others and sometimes myself, try to do it differently over the last couple of years has shown me that James is right, this is the only way to true freedom.

I am going to have to ask some people to forgive me for the way I had started to see them, and I am going to have to trust that God will be working for justice even if I can’t at the moment.

Holidays are important!